Our plans being fixed, they were at once carried into effect, and the same evening I found myself alone in my yacht, with no one but the skipper and crew and the faithful Lancey, to keep me company.
The world was now before me where to choose. After a consultation with my skipper, I resolved to go on a cruise in the Black Sea, and perhaps ascend the Danube, in spite of the rumours of possible war between the Russians and Turks.
Note 1. “A Treatise on Coast-Defence ... Compiled from official reports of officers of the United States. By Von Scheliha, Lieutenant-Colonel and chief engineer of the department of the Gulf of Mexico of the army of the late Confederate States of America.”
Chapter Six.
Turk and Bulgarian—A Wrestling Match and a Dispute.
River navigation is, to my mind, most captivating; but space forbids that I should enlarge on it, and on many other points of interest in this eventful voyage. I shall therefore pass over the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, leaving the great and classic Stamboul itself behind untouched, and transport the reader at once to one of those “touches of nature” which “make the whole world kin.”
It is a little village on the Danube river—the mighty Danube, which bears the fleets of the world on its ample breast.